"In This Your Day" Sermon Addendum

What follows is a brief (sort of) review of Daniel 9 as it relates to Luke 19 and the Triumphal Entry of Jesus into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday. This is a follow-up to Pastor Lance’s message given on Sunday, March 29, 2015.
 
In Daniel 9:25, the angel Gabriel tells the prophet, “Know therefore and understand, that from the going forth of the command to restore and build Jerusalem until Messiah the Prince, there shall be seven weeks and sixty-two weeks; The street shall be built again, and the wall, even in troublesome times.”
It’s not within the scope of this current study to dive into “seven weeks and sixty-two weeks.” Suffice it to say “weeks” is a Hebrew idiom for sets of 7 years. What we’re interested in here is the total of 69 sevens, or 483 years.

The starting point of this 483 years is the command to restore and build Jerusalem. The end is when the Messiah comes as Prince, or ruler.

Commentators divide into a different camps as to when that command to restore Jerusalem came. There are three commands given in Scripture regarding the rebuilding of Jerusalem.

1) The decree of Cyrus in 538-537 BC to rebuild the temple (Ezra 1:2-4, 6:3-5)

2) The decree of Artaxerxes in 458 BC to reprovision the temple (Ezra 7:11-26)

3) The decree of Artaxerxes in 445 BC to rebuild the city of Jerusalem (Neh. 2:1-18)

The most important piece of evidence in determining which of these Gabriel meant is by zeroing in on his words. He said the command would be to restore and build Jerusalem and that the streets and walls would be built in troublesome times.

Neither Cyrus’ nor Artaxerxes’ first command gave permission for the rebuilding of the city or it’s defenses. They were decrees to rebuild the temple so Yahweh could be worshipped once again. The specific command to rebuild Jerusalem’s streets and wall came in the 20th year of Artaxerxes and was given to Nehemiah as we read in Nehemiah 2. This forms the starting point of the 483 years.

In Nehemiah 2:1-8, the command to rebuild Jerusalem came on the 1st of Nisan in the 20th year of Artaxerxes. That’s March 14th, 445 BC on our calendar.

In the Bible, a year is a year, and especially in a prophetic context, is 360 days.[1]

483 years times 360 days = 173,880 days.

173,880 days from March 14th, 445 BC is April 6, 32 AD.

That’s Palm Sunday, the day Jesus rode into the City of Jerusalem in the Triumphal Entry, being heralded by the people as their Messiah, the Prince.

This is why Jesus makes the cryptic remark in response to the Pharisees who asked that he tell the crowds to halt their heralding Him as their Messiah and ruler, “If they should be silent, the very stones would cry out.” Jesus said this because of THIS VERY PROPHECY in Daniel. Gabriel had said that from the command to restore Jerusalem until Messiah the Prince would be 173,880 days – and this was the day. Since the Word of God cannot be broken, if the people were silent in their praise, God would have to make the rocks spring to life and shout the praises of Jesus as Messiah the Prince.

The people were shouting the words of Psalm 118 which says this . . .

This is the day which the LORD hath made; we will rejoice and be glad in it. Save now, I beseech thee, O LORD: O LORD, I beseech thee, send now prosperity. Blessed be he that cometh in the name of the LORD: we have blessed you out of the house of the LORD.

In solar reckoning, a year is 365 days, 5 hours, 48 minutes & 46 seconds.  That’s 11:14 short of a 365¼ days per year. So while we have a leap year every 4 years, any leap year that fall on a century is not a leap year, unless it is divisible by 400.

From 445 BC to 32 AD = 476 years (1 BC to 1 AD is 1 year. There is no Year 0.)

476 years times 365 days = 173,740 days.

Add 116 extra days due to leap years and the difference from March 14 to April 6 = 173,880 days; identical to Daniel 9:25 173,880 days.

Funny how that works.

[1] This is based on calculations determined from several sources. Genesis 7:11, 24, Genesis 8:4, Revelation 11:2-3, 12:6, and 13:5.  It appears that the original calendar used by the ancients was based on a 360 day year but that something has occurred to the earth’s orbit of the sun to alter this to a 365¼ day year. Consider the 360 degrees of a circle and the figuring of time into 60 minutes.  Some suggest the near pass of Mars or cataclysmic upheavals during the flood which altered our calendars.